Mitsubishi Electric announces what it describes as the first Automated Design Deep Learning Algorithm, a system that designs deep learning structures to speed development of AI applications.

Ozzies Deploy Deep Learning Supercomputers

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) deploystwo stupidly powerful NVIDIA DGX-1s, each of which has the throughput of 250 servers. First up on the list of projects: sifting through massive quantities of data to understand the impact of environment on disease. In ZDNet, Chris Duckett reports.

NVIDIA, FANUC to Build Smart Robots

NVIDIA and FANUC announce an alliance to embed DL-driven AI in the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link and Drive (FIELD) system for robotics. Adding AI enables robots to teach themselves to perform tasks more efficiently. FANUC will use NVIDIA GPUs and DL software. In MIT Technology Review, Will Knight explains why this is a big deal.

In the Fiscal Times, Frank Konkel summarizes how the CIA uses machine learning to predict such things as the flow of illicit cash to extremists. In Defense One, Frank Konkel reports that the CIA says it can predict social unrest 3-5 days in advance. I don’t think this is what folks have in mind when they call for Data Science for Social Good.

Khronos Group Proposes Open Standards for Neural Networks

The Khronos Group, a consortium of hardware and software companies, announces two initiatives to promote the development of neural network techniques. The Neural Network Exchange Format (NNEF) initiative will develop an open standard file format to exchange deep learning models between training and inference systems. The OpenVX Neural Network Extension project will be a high-level architecture specification to run Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) as OpenVX graphs. Brandon Lewis reports.